CountdownJ

summary:display a clock of time remaining for speakers in a conference session
author:Pete R. Jemian
email:prjemian@gmail.com
copyright:2014, Pete R. Jemian
license:GPL3 (see LICENSE file)
git:https://github.com/prjemian/CountdownJ
URL:http://prjemian.github.io/CountdownJ

Motivation

Have you ever been a speaker at a meeting and talked too long? If you’d known you only had 3 minutes left, you might have restructured your next remarks.

Perhaps you have been a session organizer and all your speakers take a few extra minutes. Your session schedule is just shot to bits.

Here is a tool that will help to keep speakers on schedule by providing a display of the time remaining for them to speak. Giving feedback to speaker, sessions moderator, and even session attendees, this simple tool has been useful in helping conference sessions stick close to the schedule through social engineering.

Requirements

Here is a terse list of the initial display requirements:

  • show the time remaining (MM:SS) in big characters on a black background
  • show a word or phrase indicating the current phase of the presentation
  • no other clutter in the display
  • allow for talks of different lengths
  • alert speakers and audience when time has run out
  • provide audible indicators at phase transitions and in overtime
phase indicator
before presentation white text or blank
starting 1 beep
presentation green text
change to discussion 2 beeps
discussion / questions yellow text
time is out 3 beeps
overtime red text and 3 beeps every interval

Contents

Instructions

under construction

re-write to include the config and other screens

The user interface is simple.

  • Maximize the window on the screen.
  • Add time to the clock for the presentation.
  • If too much time is added, press stop to clear and re-enter the time needed.
  • Start the timer when the speaker starts.
  • Pause if necessary. Press start to resume.
  • Stop the timer when the presentation is done.
  • Clock will clear on stop or when pause is in overtime.
Screen Examples
Initial Screen
basic

Basic screen provides controls to add time to the current or next presentation.

Other buttons are intuitive: Start and Clear. Once the timer has started, Start changes to Pause. When paused, Pause changes to Resume.

Tabs access Presets (preset talk lengths) and other controls (Configure and About).

Before talk starts
ready

Next speaker has 15 minutes for a presentation. Have the session moderator or monitor press the start button when the speaker starts.

Talk has started
presenting

The talk has begun. Countdown timer is churning away. Timer will beep once when time reaches 5 minutes.

Talk has paused
paused

The talk has been paused. Maybe some interruption?

Discussion time
discussion

The talk has only a short time left. Time to consider audience questions. Timer will beep twice when clock reaches zero.

Time is over
overtime

Time has run out. Speaker should wrap things up. Timer will beep 3 times every minute into overtime.

Configure

under construction

re-write to include the config and other screens

Show the configuration screens

Settings file Format

under construction

re-write to include the config and other screens

  • Describe the settings file format (XML)
  • note that the format is described by an XML Schema (schema.xsd)

To-Do List

  • Change the start, pause, and stop button text to the symbols standard on most DVD tools. You know the ones already.
  • change the time setting tool to use + and - above/below each digit

License

See the LICENSE file included with the distribution.

This documentation built Sep 27, 2017.